


lonely after light.

by aggressivesalmon



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, How Do I Tag, Jason Todd Has Issues, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Locked In, Oxygen Deprivation, Swearing, Tim Drake is Red Robin, almost forgot about that, there is a fair amount of, there's a shipping container
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24423697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aggressivesalmon/pseuds/aggressivesalmon
Summary: Waking up was a mistake, Jason quickly decided. Waking up meant finding out where he was, which was a) not in his favorite safehouse, b) not in any of his safehouses, and c) somewhere cold.Which was really not super, in fact it was several, significant, notches below outstanding; most definitely un-groovy.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Comments: 10
Kudos: 385





	lonely after light.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written a single fanfic before in my life, but whatever, here it is. Have, uh, fun? I guess?
> 
> Also title is from At the Door by the Strokes.

Waking up was a mistake, Jason quickly decided. Waking up meant finding out where he was, which was a) not in his favorite safehouse, b) not in any of his safehouses, and c) somewhere cold. As if those prospects hadn’t been promising enough, there was also the throbbing in his skull, the sharp ache of snapped bones in his ribs, the complete darkness, and the unsettling feel of clothes too light to be tactical. Something hard and edged was pressing into his lower back, which was a definite drawback as far as sleeping surfaces went.

But hey, at least there wasn’t any diabolical and possibly homicidal laughter coming from anywhere. Which was – as far as Jason was concerned – always a plus when you woke up without knowing where you were, really. Less of a plus were the cold and the darkness and the pain and the unfolding bud of panic in his chest.

So yes, in summary; waking up was a mistake. Reason – or what little of it he had left – told him that going to sleep was perhaps even worse. Especially here, right now. First of all was the entire not-knowing-where-he-was situation, which was less than stellar. But there was also the how-the-everlasting-fuck-did-he-end-up-here situation, and that situation was quickly followed by the who-had-managed-to-get-him-to-wherever-this-was situation. Jason concluded, after a few moments of deliberation, that that was too many situations to be in at once. The unavoidable red thread here, however, was the fact that if he thought about it, his mind only supplied complete emptiness when he tried to remember where he _should_ be. Again, less than great. All the smaller situations that added up to this bigger situation were not super, in fact they were several, significant, notches below outstanding; most definitely un-groovy.

Jason snorted, the Replacement would’ve laughed at that, maybe, he hoped. Timmy-tam was weird like that. But Tiny Tim wasn’t here, it seemed. Because outside of Jason’s own breathing and the drip-drip-dripping of water, there wasn’t any sounds at all. A fact that would be daunting, if not for the fact that Jason was taking that tiny flare of terror and trampling it hard enough to snuff out; until any and all remains were grounded to ash beneath his nonliteral boot.

There was a selection of places that managed this kind of silence – the impenetrable, heavy, loaded kind. In that selection was a casket, as it turned out. And Jason had experience with lying in caskets, and the kind of silence caskets had, and he would just rather _not,_ right now. Thinking about caskets got him thinking about dirt and death, and while he usually would find that topic absolutely uproarious – provided he had a bat-themed audience – it devolved into something too similar to morose when he was alone. Which he was, right now.

Pretty soon, though, it became clear this wasn’t a casket. Mainly due to the fact that he could sit up straight without hitting the padded interior of his not-so-final resting place. And when he felt around there were pallets beneath him, and pallets around him, and now he had a splinter in his finger. The sting of it was nothing really, he’d certainly had worse, objectively, if you counted the death by crowbar incident, but fuck if it didn’t prick like a bitch. Also, splinter to the finger meant no gloves. In itself, no gloves didn’t herald the end of things, but the lack of gloves made Jason very aware of the lack of gun holsters, and of body-armor, and of guns and knives and pilfered batarangs.

Standing up – not at all shakily, thank you very much – the fact that he was not at all Red Hood and very much Jason Peter Todd, became increasingly obvious. He was still in the ratty sweatpants Dick liked to steal whenever he crashed, still in the threadbare tank top Roy spilled oil on a month ago, and the Wonder Woman-socks he pulled on only when he was certain none of the bat-adjacent vigilantes would drop by. And the socks were cold, their red and blue, and golden fabric soaked, presumably in water. And he was cold. And for some intangible reason, the fact that he was a dead boy right now, instead of, say, an angry gun-wielding vigilante, made something icy spill from his throat to the pit of his stomach. Which didn’t help, which was why he adamantly did not think about it. At all.

Instead, Jason listened to his own breathing; calm and steady and nowhere near panicked. Breathe in, breathe out, just like that. No hitching or stuttering in his breathing, no sir. Given that he wasn’t panicked or scared or any of their neighboring synonyms, he also did not need to recall any nifty breathing techniques taught by old, broody mentors. Jason merely tested the ground with his socked feet, found the end of the splintered pallet he’d been lying on, and stepped forward.

If he had thought his feet couldn’t get any colder, he had been wrong. Because apparently the floor was either metal or cement, and by god was it freezing. It was the kind of cold that travelled faster than your brain did, meaning it had already travelled far up Jason’s thigh before he thought to hiss at the contact. And hiss he did, shattering the thick quiet stifling the air. He also swore a bit, for good measure. Just a few chosen words for the general vicinity, which at the moment seemed to be limited to himself and a small number of pallets. For all Jason knew, though, there might be an infrared camera somewhere, so he also waggled his fingers in the dark, just in case. Once that was taken care of, he started shuffling forward, gingerly. Fingers splayed out in front of him, slow and dragging steps. Kind of like – Jason sniggered – a _zombie_.

(But, if there indeed was a camera watching anywhere, he hoped whoever was at the other end was amused, because once he busted out of here, they’d get a nice little bullet lodged right behind their patella. Maybe he’d also shatter their tibias, once he was at it.)

After a collection of cautious steps, Jason’s fingers met another cold surface. An uneven facade, possibly metal with the way it clanged when he tapped at it. With even intervals of about a hand’s width it curved inwards, curving back after the same length. Similar to a wave, Jason realized, letting his hands follow the wall until he reached a corner. On the adjacent wall, the waves stopped. Replaced by a hard and unyielding flat. Okay, fine. So, he was inside a room, of some sort. Fine, good. Nothing like being contained and cold and in complete darkness to trigger some well-buried issues.

There was no time to think about that now, though. So, Jason didn’t. Oh no. He followed this new wall instead, and then went back up the old one, side-stepping the pallets after decidedly not crashing into them at any point. After his smooth and utterly soundless sweep of the room, the rough measurements came to twelve meters in length, and a whopping two meters in breadth. And, Jason figured that since he hadn’t hit his head yet, the thing had to be above one eighty, height-wise. Those kinds of numbers and that kind of walls and the metal and the cold and the pallets only really left one viable option, but Jason was loath to admit he’d been snatched and stashed away in some shipping container. No fucking thanks.

There was no way in hell he was actually trapped inside a stupid steel box. Surrounded by blackness and cold, armed only with his fists and a pile of disintegrating pallets. It was well outside the realm of things that could happen to him, mainly because he didn’t want it to. Clearly, this was something he had to deal with himself. Besides the good-for-nothing pallets and their crumbly-ass wood, there wasn’t anything there but emptiness. No comms, no weapons, no nothing. No way the others knew where he was. Hell, Jason didn’t actually know where he was either. Inside some sort of shipping container, yes, but that container could be just about anywhere. Even if it was in Gotham, the fact remained that Gotham had plenty of places that could hold plenty of containers. There were Dixon Docks, or Admiral Docks at Tricorner, or Port Adams, or Cape Carmine, or Sheal Docklands, or even the goddamn Rogers Yacht Basin up by North Point. Oh, and Miller Harbor.

In summary, Jason was on his own. Which was fine. He usually was, and it worked out, for the most part. Well, it was the one time where it really did not work out, but that was another thing Jason kept at a distance, mentally, right now.

The others not swooping in to save the day was no reason for him to say uncle, though. He’d dealt with that before, had escaped whole – more or less – from nightmares worse than this one, lived to tell the tales in great detail to people who’d rather not listen. And that was exactly what he was planning on doing now, too.

Fumbling his way towards the presumed door, Jason let his fingers run over the entire surface. It was cold, just like everything else in there, and there were the indents of some bolts, and some protruding areas. What it didn’t have, in any way, shape, or form, was an opening mechanism. And that was great, it really was, because Jason loved spending time in a place with a darkness so suffocating it made no difference whether his eyes were closed or not. A favorite pastime, that.

He slid down to the floor, carefully gathered his knees to his chest, back against where the doors joined, face to the ceiling. Not that it mattered, since he could see exactly nothing and half a dust particle.

Ice crept into his veins, slowly seeping through shopworn fabric. And there was a heaviness in his chest now, breaths turning back to that stunted wheezing. For some reason, his heart was thudding slowly behind his ribcage, even when everything about the situation told Jason it really should be rabbiting wildly. No matter though, hearts usually did whatever they wanted to, Jason couldn’t blame them. If they wanted to slow down, that was fine. So, he let his heart do its slow dancing, while he twisted back, fingers finding the small chasm between the doors. They were cold, his fingers – well the doors too, but that’s beside the point – and numb, and they did little in the way of opening the damn thing. So, he pushed against them, experimentally and with little result.

He kept prodding at the metal, however, with unfeeling fingers, until the frustration turned to heat in his chest. Until the blackness was lit only vaguely with a tint of green and snakes were running venomous beneath his skin. With an echoing growl, he whirled back, slammed his head against the surface, then cringed, because damn was that dumb. Pain was dumb, and now his head throbbed even more. He still couldn’t breathe any better and none of Bruce’s moronic exercises were helping. On top of that, his fingers were now aching in a warmer way than before, despite the deadening cold. And he was still stuck in a fucking container somewhere.

What stung worst though, probably, was the fact that just last week Tim had been all over his case about some subdermal trackers. Jason had refused, like he always did, spouting some horseshit about stalking and independence and give it a fucking rest, Replacement. Could have really used that tracker now, couldn’t you Jason? Could have really used a singular functioning human relationship in his life too, but hey, no one ever said he’d been the smart Robin. And if he ended up dying again because he’d been an idiot, well, that was on him. Bruce had like, a dozen other kids to fill his space, and then they wouldn’t have to deal with this delinquent in red anymore. Which was fine. They’d all be happy together, like they had been the first time he died. They would banter and joke and patrol and save the world, and Jason would be dead, and it would be _fine_.

In all probability, Bruce would actually end up a bit relieved; no more Jason meant no more worries of blood on his hands or saving his fraying mortal soul or whatever. With him out of the way, Bruce could focus properly on saving the world with his other super-friends, and having the kids he actually cared about over for dinner, and making sure Alfred took a night off every once in a while. And that was fine, it really was. Because Jason knew he wasn’t wanted, not sincerely anyway. Which was fair; they’d lost a troubled teen and gotten a shambling, murderous mess back. There’s got to be something about that in the Consumer Rights Act: revivified boys may be refunded if resurrection caused bloodthirst and homicidal tendencies or other similar side effects.

Jason had inflicted some serious wounds upon the family, he knew that. Hurting himself had turned into hurting everything around him had turned back around to hurting himself again. He kept hurting people, still. Sometimes because he didn’t know what else to do but bite and only let go once he heard crunching. Other times because his edges were so sharp and jagged that he cut to the bone whenever he turned. And Jason knew he was bleeding himself, rivers and lakes and oceans of blood. But bleeding himself did not mean he was allowed to bleed on everybody else or make them bleed with him. And fuck, had he learned that lesson about four years too late.

Therefore, none of those he’d hurt were actually to blame, if they didn’t mourn him proper.

Jason wasn’t dead yet, though. A fact that was startingly clear even in the thickness of the dark. Because where his heart had been lagging behind earlier, it was now doing the quickstep in double tempo. Apparently, his lungs decided that was a fun thing too, because with the way they were working right now he couldn’t catch half a breath before the next one began. It was almost enough to dispel the cold. Almost, being the key word. For his fingers were numb again, no longer overworked and warm, but cold and sticky. His socked feet were doing marginally better, if only because they had Wonder Woman-merch protecting them.

See, the thing was, Jason wasn’t too keen on giving in here, he really wasn’t, but at the moment he couldn’t get his feet beneath him, or his fingers to curl into fists. There was this blur around everything, even if he saw nothing. And usually when he got like this – useless, tired, miserable – he would find something to rage at, but there wasn’t anything here but himself and the pallets. Getting angry at scrapped wood was something of a low point he wouldn’t allow himself, imminent doom be damned, so it was just him left.

Alone, again.

At least if he somehow, magically got back from this one, he wouldn’t have to dig his way through black walnut with a belt buckle. It wouldn’t be as claustrophobic, this time. He had all of twelve times two meters to situate himself in. Which wasn’t much, but it was more than a casket allowed, so he’d take it. As things were, Jason figured, they wouldn’t actually find him. Based on the fact that he didn’t know where he was nor who he pissed off enough – as Jason no less – to warrant death by shipping container, the percentage for dying alone and never being found was in the upper ninetieth percentile. And hey, maybe the others would just assume he left again, as he was wont to do. Maybe they would try to call, or break into some safehouses, or ask around a bit. Maybe that would lead them to nothing, and then they would infer – like the detectives they were – that Jason had done as Jason does and fucked off without telling them. And maybe they would wait for him to come back, which he wouldn’t, while his corpse would be rotting in here; his new and final home. Or maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t think about him at all, after deciding he wouldn’t come back. And then he’d really be just a corpse to be discovered by some unlucky asshat working at the docks somewhere.

Jason sobbed. It was loud enough in the quiet to startle him, which was objectively hilarious in a pitiful kind of way. And that, in turn, only made him sob harder. Resounding cries filling the swallowing black, wet and too loud. In short seconds though, the sobbing turned to violent coughing. Making vicious fire spread across his busted ribs, burning spikes tearing into his lungs. Pain flared along his entire torso, but with it came the tiniest flicker of anger. And anger he could deal with, pain too, at least of the physical variety. So yes, maybe he was still crying, and his head was throbbing, and his lungs were doing shit at their job, and he was frozen numb, but where there was anger there was action. The action might be futile and wasted, thoughtless and violent, yet it was all he had. No way he was going to nod along as hypoxia did him in, not when gunshots and crowbars and stabbings had failed to.

Still bawling – though quieter now, less like a lost brat in a mall and more like a respectful mob wife at her second husband’s funeral – he turned again to the steel doors, placing numb fingers to cold metal and continued prying. It was more like desperate scrambling, really; scraping and clawing and scratching at an unyielding enemy. There was pain there, too. Distant and looming. But Jason was past caring.

The dense blackness was encroaching, somehow. And breathing was getting heavier by every inhale, until he was wheezing against the wall, forehead leaning on the cold there, hands still working to dig through metal. His eyes were closed, though he didn’t remember closing them. But that was alright. Maybe it wasn’t such a disaster if he slept, waking up had been a mistake, after all. Sleeping would solve it. Jason just knew.

* * *

The fact that they had even realized was a frustrating mixture of luck and coincidence, though Bruce was disinclined to admit it. An offhanded comment to Dick about undercover work. Tim picking up shifty chatter by Admiral Docks. Jason not answering comms. None of it damning evidence, none of it tangible enough to act on. It wasn’t wholly unlike Jason to avoid them for days or weeks at a time, ignoring when they hailed his comms unless the situation was dire enough to tempt him. Bruce told himself that didn’t sting.

Tonight though, he was supposed to help Nightwing with a case, and Jason wasn’t late, ever. But, by now it had been three hours since he was supposed to arrive, and so, Bruce did some cursory visits to Jason’s most frequented safehouses. Well, those they knew of. All of them had been empty, but only one of them had half a cup of cold tea, an open copy of _An Enemy of the People_ on the floor, and a discarded dart among the couch cushions.

A total of 26 minutes had passed since Batman had grappled out of the safehouse, suppressed panic high in his throat. Getting Nightwing on comms to ask about Jason’s undercover op before hailing Red Robin to confirm location, he hadn’t even remembered doing, his mind stuck on a continuous loop of _please_ and _not again_ and _what if what if what if_. The trip from Coventry to Tricorner had been a whirl of anxiety and poorly buried memories fighting to re-emerge. But this wasn’t Ethiopia, there was no warehouse, no bomb, no Joker. So, Bruce breathed, focused, and leapt across the rooftops of Gotham.

When he’d reached the docks, Red Robin was already there, standing atop the northern guard house. For a few seconds they listened to the water lapping quietly against buoys and berths and cargo ships, a few gulls shrieking in the dark. In the jet black of the water only a few lights were reflected, the rest hindered by rows upon rows of intermodal containers.

“No perceptible thermal signatures aside from the regular guards,” Red Robin said, hand at his temple. “Eight in total.”

“Hnn.”

“It sounded like they stashed him in one of the containers,” he continued. “Apparently his alias was Todd Johnson. He’s been working on one of the mob cases.”

Bruce surveyed the area. The number of containers easily exceeded the one hundred mark, stacked four in height. And they were tall and imposing and hiding one of his sons.

“We need to find the one he’s in,” Batman grunted. “There is no way of knowing how long he’s been in there. Oxygen supply is a concern.”

To his left, Red Robin nodded. He adamantly did not think about how Jason had told him he hated enclosed spaces, once, when he was high on painkillers, nor how he was all alone right now, inside a metal box. No one to curse at, no one to hold him.

“Comb the area.”

With that Batman turned away, cape billowing behind him as he dropped to the tarmac below them. Thermal scanners would do little with steel plates separating them, meaning the most efficient way of finding Jason would be through an auditory sweep. Were he still unconscious that might prove a problem, but Bruce was good at problems, at solving them. It was a simple matter of tuning the cowl correctly, of listening intently and not letting smoke and heat and broken bones bore into his judgement. They would find him. They would find his boy, and when they did, Jason would be fine. He had to be. Because if he wasn’t, how was Bruce supposed to be?

He moved between towering steel crates, quiet as the air itself, only the occasional comment from Red Robin broke the hush. Invariably the brief remarks were different forms of _Jason isn’t here either_. Words his mind twisted and turned into _prepare to lose him again_ and _you’re letting him die for a second time_ or _god he’s all alone_. All it did was force the panic higher in his chest, expanding wildly inside his lungs, pumping from his heart through his veins. It was a weakness, a deadly distraction, this fear crawling beneath his skin. Batman wasn’t supposed to be afraid; fear was something he should inspire in others, not feel himself. But it was always like this, when it was one of them, one of his. Because even if he knew – deep into the marrow of his bones, had it branded into the back of his skull – that his kids could protect themselves, that they were capable and strong and independent, there were still things out there no one could conquer. And perhaps, out of all his children, Jason was the one who’d learned that lesson best.

Bruce had learned it through him, initially, in the vacant places left in his absence, the hollow silence where a boisterous laughter should be, books unread in an empty bedroom. Then he’d come back, all anger and vengeance and violence. Years ago, now. And that time had mellowed him, though not too much, Jason was still sharp edges and sudden bursts of passion, but there was less hatred, less unbridled rage. To some, it was too little polish, still. Bruce never thought so, he would take the cuts, if it meant he had Jason. Now, he just had to find him, here, in this maze of steel and cold. Jason was here somewhere, and he would be fine. He would be fine, if only Bruce could find him. 

7 minutes and 43 seconds. That was how long it took until the cowl picked up rapid breathing, a low wheezing, nearly lost to the dull flop of waves. But it was there. Along with a scratching sound, tiny echoes of repeated tapping on metal. Coming from a scuffed and faded red container, bottom tier, east of the guard house.

“Red Robin,” he snapped, striding over to the metal doors. “My position. Now.”

“Roger, B.”

There was no lock, not even one of those flimsy padlocks. Not that it would matter, Bruce wasn’t about to be kept from his boy by anything less than God himself, and even then, he’d fight. But God wasn’t here to stop him, and neither was a lock of any kind. So, in the end it was the humble act of unclasping the pair of handles. The snap of them crisp and loud in the suspended silence around him. Nothing reached him here, not even the seagulls screeching overhead, the lurch of water receding, the sirens wailing in the distance.

Just as Red Robin landed noiselessly behind him, he pulled the doors open.

Neither of them had expected Jason to fall out of the damn thing. Bruce caught him, dropping to his knees to capture the broad shoulders of his second son before his head bounced off the asphalt. His reward came in the shape of Jason’s skull smacking into his chin, a mop of black curls brushing at his lips, tickling the exposed underside of his nose.

Tim’s yelp was enough to drown out his own startled grunt.

“Shit, B,” he muttered. “Look at his hands.”

Bruce didn’t need to look at them, the evidence of what he would find was written on the doors they’d just pulled open; streaks of drying red and copper. That didn’t stop him from looking, though, peeking down at mangled digits and torn nails. Tips tinged blue where the blood had not yet leaked. Swollen and discolored. But at least they were twitching. Small, abrupted movements. And just when Bruce shifted to tuck his head beneath his own chin, Jason heaved a massive gulp of air. He shook in his grasp, shuddering and trembling as he took in yet another breath, and one more after that.

Tim had bent down in front of him, crouching between outstretched legs with a hand on his right knee. He watched Bruce as Bruce watched Jason, the white lenses of the cowl screening any and all emotions that might hide behind it. Jason, though, had no cowl and no domino to hide his own reddened and puffy eyes, the pink of dilated blood vessels stark against the teal of his iris. Under his nose there was snot. Tan skin covered in a sheen of sweat, swiftly cooling in the night air. Bruce had taken to carding gloved hands through his hair as he shook, still heaving breaths, one after the other. As Jason turned to press his wet face against Batman’s neck, Tim turned to the opened container, steadfast in ignoring the quiet whispers from Bruce, the whimpers from Jason.

Unsurprisingly, there was little to find in the container itself. Only some broken pallets, scattered in the small space. The bloodened insides of the doors were the only indication of Jason’s struggle; scrambling streaks of red in haphazard, frantic patterns. Apart from those glaring marks, like flashing signposts reading _panic_ and _help_ and _don’t leave me behind_ , there was nothing to suggest anything but a typical shipping container, empty and hollow in between freights. And standing among the splintered wood, watching how Jason curled against Bruce, shaking in his embrace, Tim couldn’t help but think that it was all really a coincidence, the way they found him. How close Jason had been to suffocating alone in a dark, enclosed space, without any of them knowing, pushing against doors that wouldn’t open for him. And Jesus, he’d never seen Jason like this; fragile, cracking, scared. Not wisecracking and aggravating and guarded. Red Hood wasn’t supposed to seek comfort in Batman, not when he was wearing a ruined tank top and Wonder Woman-socks – which, wow, was Tim going to ask about that later, after Jason was done almost dying – but right now, there was no Red Hood, no Batman. Tim looked out and saw a son leaning into his father, no matter how obdurately Jason would argue that observation. An observation made only more definite when he stepped towards them, only to hear Jason muttering, wet and hushed:

“You, you came. I didn’t, didn’t think that –.”

“Shh,” Bruce soothed, voice modulator switched off, for once. “Jay, we’re here. We’ll take you back to the cave, get your oxygen levels up. You’re out now, it’s fine.”

Jason nodded, weakly, cheek rubbing against the bat symbol on Bruce’s chest.

“’m cold, B,” he muttered, as Bruce combed through his pale fringe. “’m really cold.”

“Let’s get you to the cave, then,” Bruce said, smiled briefly, before turning to Tim, he barely managed to open his mouth before Tim cut him off:

“I’ll hail Wing, tell him to keep on patrolling with Robin. The Batmobile is en route, ETA four minutes.”

The flicker of a grin reached Bruce’s face before Batman schooled it into the regular, stoic line. But he nodded, slowly, continued to run his gloved fingers through Jason’s hair. An action so natural, so unconsidered it couldn’t be anything but habit. Tim would know, the phantom feeling of those fingers against his own scalp readily available.

Jason had closed his eyes, breathing back to a somewhat steady rhythm. The tears having stopped now, only the salty track on his cheeks remaining. It looked almost as though he was napping against Bruce’s chest, unbothered and calm. Well, aside from the obvious damage to his hands, and the red swollen space beneath his eyes, and the fact that they were down at Admiral Docks at three in the morning, surrounded by shipping containers. 

“Hey,” Tim said. “How you feeling, Jay?”

A teal eye cracked open. Something of a wicked smirk curling his lips.

“Un-groovy, Timbo,” he rasped. “Definitely un-groovy.”

Caught off-guard, Tim stared for a second at Jason, at the eyes that were so nearly finding that teasing gleam they usually had, despite the pink in his sclera and the obvious wet sheen. It was a second suspended in disbelief, with Bruce staring down at Jason, thoughts of brain damage due to hypoxia probably flitting through his mind. But then he doubled over in a laughter that bounced off of the metal around them, rung out across the docks. Distantly he heard Batman shushing him, Jason sniggering where he laid. There would be a lecture waiting for him, for both of them probably, back at the cave. About mission integrity and how sound carried across water and how they could have been discovered and with Jason injured thing could get dangerous and on and on and on. But right now, Tim was laughing, Jason wasn’t dead, and things would probably be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the read, hope you had, eh, fun?  
> Anyway thanks a lot :))


End file.
